Info

Donations Welcome

I would be grateful for donations of any size, small or large, to help defray the cost (1) of maintaining this website, (2) and to finance my
past and present research which produced my book posted here, Volume One of "The Wound That Will Never Heal," and my forthcoming revision of Volume One (to be submitted for publication), and completion of Volume Two on Wagner's six other canonic operas and music-dramas. I sacrificed at least seven years of paid employment and incurred debts to complete this project, and am currently unemployed, so I thank you in advance for any financial help you can provide. Your friend, Paul Heise.

Key Colour Coding

Siegfried: Page 589

589

Wagner suggests here that while religion should seek to influence ethics (as Wotan, by bringing Siegfried’s father Siegmund up, instilled in him an individual conscience which according to Feuerbach was religion’s best legacy to secular man, and one which Feuerbach believed had formerly flourished – and could do so again - without any dependence on religious belief), art itself should represent faith, since it can transform illusion into truth:

“In our times, R. continues, religion should seek to influence ethics, and allow faith to be represented by art, which can transform illusion into truth.” [994W-{11/14/79}CD Vol. II, p. 395]

Siegfried the artist-hero, having breached religious faith, and broken Wotan’s social contract, and therefore neutralized the fear of truth upon which both depended (Fafner), has fallen heir to the duty to guard man’s great unspoken secret in his own unique art, the Wagnerian music drama. It is Bruennhilde who keeps this secret not only “for” Siegfried, but “from” him, and Siegfried will soon wake her.